Updates!

We've been doing really well recently. Ryan's growing up so fast. I know that's cliche and everyone says it, but it's true! I don't know when he turned into this little boy instead of my baby. I'll try to highlight some of the exciting things he's saying and doing, although there's so much fun happening everyday, I'm sure I'll overlook something ... But here we go anyways ...

- Ryan's vocabulary is improving all the time! He says all sorts of things now, and is getting pretty good at doing so unprompted vs always just being my parrot.

- He can name probably 2/3 of the alphabet (only capital letters). It still catches me off guard to hear him announce "E" or "B" or "H" seemingly out of the blue. But if I look around, he's always right and there's the letter on a sign or something. He has a set of large cutout alphabet shaped books and he loves to match them to the correct letter on his alphabet caterpillar. Even if he doesn't know their name, he always matches them right. And he does this on his own, he's really smart :) He also knows his name. He reads the label on his sippy cups: "R-Y-A-N"

- He tries to do numbers, but doesn't do them in the right order. He just starts naming them ... "6, 2, 5, 3,9, whatever" and wiggling his fingers. He can finally hold up just two fingers which he likes to do. For a long time that third finger just wouldn't stay down and he'd try to hold it out of the way.

- He also can name the colors. Unfortunately he just doesn't put the name with the right color yet! Pretty much everything is either green or yellow. Funniest thing: Twice now walking up the stairs, he has recited "green, ye-yow, green, ye-yow" up the stairs. Not really sure what that's about.

- He loves school. He's all smiles and happy to go now. And when I pick him up, he's very talkative. "Bye School, Bye Friends, Bye Vickie (his teacher)" followed by "Home, Sampson- Dog, Kitty- Nellie." Occassionally he's offered "fun" and "ball." It was hard those first few weeks to leave him, but I'm starting to enjoy my free time!

- He can open doors now which is mostly bad, but has some positives. He gets his own sippy cups from the fridge and that's nice. Not so nice is opening the pantry or the garage doors - those both have baby proof handle covers now. He hasn't quite figured out the front door, but he's way too close to that one too. He can open the deadbolt, but not the little lock on the knob. Aargh!

- He's becoming very independent. Really like to put on his own socks and jeans, which he can't quite do. So getting dressed can take a very long time now if I let him help! It's hard trying to balance letting him try these things and just wanting to do them myself since it's easier & faster! Esp on the mornings when we are trying to hurry to get to school or a doctor appt.

That's about all I can do right now, my attn span is running out and I'm tired of sitting here at the computer! :)

Have a great weekend!!